THE NATIONAL ROSTER: HUMANA

Headquarters:

Louisville, Kentucky

2007 Profits:

$834 million

2007 CEO Total Compensation:

Michael B. McCallister, $10,312,557

Humana is the former employer of Dr. Linda Peeno, a claims reviewer who testified before Congress in 1996 and spoke of denying an operation to a man who later died.

“I was told I’d done a good job. Congratulations. That I’d saved the company half a million dollars,” Peeno told National Public Radio in September 2007. “You’re sitting on the 23rd floor of a marble building 1,000 miles away, and all you’re focused on are the numbers and the dollars.” But that was then. What about now?

Infamous For:

“The Old Bait and Switch”

Humana’s a big player in the privatized portion of Medicare. But, in early 2007, Humana found itself accused of “bait and switch” tactics—luring seniors into a Medicare prescription drug plan by offering low premiums one year, then jacking them up the next.

In May that year, according to The New York Times: “In the first major investigation of Medicare marketing, the Oklahoma insurance commissioner has documented widespread misconduct by agents working for Humana.” Investigators found signs that agents had used “bait and switch tactics to secure the initial invitation” into Medicare beneficiaries’ homes. The state fined Humana half a million dollars for “using unlicensed agents” and, in some cases, “misleading marketing practices and misrepresentations.”

Translation:

We swindled grandma. (Seems pretty inhumana.)

Read about other insurance companies on the national roster:
Aetna | CIGNA | Coventry | Health Net | UnitedHealth | WellPoint

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